Gamasutra Game Development Salary Survey - Solo Indies Down 49%

So if you're planning on being a solo indie game developer, and if it takes off then you need to understand that you would have earned $11,812 on average last year (2013).

Now factor in the price of Unity and the assets you need to make your games. Say about $5,000 for Pro / Android / IOS a GUI and some assets, sfx, music, models ect.

That means that you would be living on around $6,812 a year or $567.66 a month.

On the other hand if you can get into or setup a team then you could have earned about $50,833 in the same period on average.

But most indies 57% made less than $500 in games sales in 2013, but 2% made over $200,000.

5% of indies in the survey made money via crowdfunding.

8% of indies made money via paid alpha sales.

http://www.gamasutra.com/salarysurvey2014.pdf

Interesting reading before you set off on your game development career and remember on average it takes 10 years to get really good at something.

 

You shouldn't be ditching your day job until you have sufficient income from your game sales to keep you afloat.

I find it really disturbing that some people might actually do that.

 

Yes it's kind of insane to gamble it on the lottery, particularly if you haven't released any titles in your spare time, and have zero hands-on experience which cannot be learned any other way.

 

I think there are two important things to consider based on the statistics:

1. Don't go solo, set up or join a team.
2. Work in the USA as they earn nearly twice as much as Europeans.

 

The stat I found interesting is that programmers with "some college" had higher salaries than all other education levels including doctorates.

As for indie gamedev salary, I don't understand how you can eat on the income levels being reported there, so it must either be skewed by the part time hobbyists or there are a lot of kids living off other people whilst pursuing the dream?

 

So hypothetically a team of three and a solo dev release the exact same game, same marketing process etc. Who earns more money here?

I don't even know where to being with statement 2, it depends on what part of a country you live in (living costs). If you're releasing on a global distribution platform like steam / google app store why does it matter where you're from?

I would agree with everyone else's statements, game dev is a sink hole of money. So keep your day job until you have a fair amount packed away and a decent release under your belt.

 

Maybe because of taxes ?? but that only matters if we talk net income and not gross

 

Taxes suck across the board, there is no exception .

I must admit some times it's cheaper to import equipment from the US and pay additional taxes than it is to buy direct in the UK. But were going a bit off topic here!.

We pay 21% up to £1.5M here.

 

I would expect the team to earn more:

• If the game is exactly the same the team of three should have been able to pull the game together in a fraction of the time, so their return on time invested is higher.
• Or what is more likely to happen is the team of three are able to produce a higher quality game in the same time and therefore earn more money. Just the synergy of a small dedicated team compared to a lone individual should produce a better product.

 

Should but not always, it's dependant on so many factors. I'd have one John Carmack vs. three N00BS ..

 

LOL I would counter that John Carmack would hire a team, he's a programmer not an artist/musician.

But as this is interesting just take a look at the Ludum Dare (LD) entries, the competition entries are solo and the Jam entries can be a team effort.

In LD #21 Notch of Minecraft fame produces this game which earned a score of 3.9 overall.

A small team also produced this game which earned a score of 4.3 overall.

Of course you will be able to find Jam entries with multiple people that score worse than some solo efforts but I think the trend will be that a team will always outperform an individual.

Another example of this trend can be found in the idea of the wisdom of the crowd.

If you ask a group of people how many marbles are in a jar. Average the total out and then compare that to an individual guess. The group tend to be more accurate than an individual. I would assume a similar effect applies to game development, just think of it as lots of jars or iteration cycles. The individual is more likely to drift further away from optimal than a group.

But skill and knowledge are still factors, although with blueprint, Unity and visual programming tools the entry level is dropping.

And if you look at the statistics in the industry survey it clearly indicates that members of indie teams outperform individuals in terms of revenue, on average earning about four times as much.

 

@Arowx

Skill factors and knowledge is the number one factor, what's the point in this that all solo devs should just hang up their boots if they don't want to work in a team?

Are you in a team and how much did you make?

 

The point is that you will probably be better off working in a team, and better off again if your studio is based in the USA.

Let's just say that as a solo developer my earnings are below average.

There is also the inferred point that maybe Unity should consider a reduced price indie friendly Pro licensing tier.

 

I suspect it's more to do with their backgrounds than where they happen to be physically located. I don't think that moving to the USA will change how much your game makes. You'd have to figure out what the US developers are doing differently to the Euro developers and learn from that.

Having said that, it could be that they've got easier access to a more willing domestic market. If so, you could potentially benefit from that in ways that don't involve physically being there.

 

No the game studios pay more, your salary will be higher.

 

I thought we were talking about indies.

 

The salary section isn't about indies. Only page 6 covers indies, the rest is the game industry in general.

 

Sure, I was just responding to the OP rather than the article. The OP is very much about indies. The closest it gets to talking about working for a studio is mentioning a "team".

 

How to increase income?

• Don't team-up with idea guys who do nothing.
• Team-up with experienced developers or artists.

• Make sure what your team produces is of sellable value. If it costs $5 on the asset store and costs that person $1000, you'd best buy the $5 instead.

• Make sure, for what you pay, you receive goods of equal value. So if you pay for a $1,000 model, it should not be a crappy piece of rubbish made by an amateur.

• Pay for what you are using. If you pay for 12 tracks, you'd be best to pay one sample song instead of 12 songs in advance.

• Stop doing free work for idea guys. Ask them to pay-up for every milestone. I've seen people be loyal to idea guys. Come on! Are you an idiot to give months of free work?

• Force customers to pay-up for goods and services done.

• It helps to check the State Registrar of Companies for fake companies. If that person is a CEO of a fake company or expired company, chances are, you'd be in hard luck to get any money for your work done.

• You can check that establishment's BBB (Better Business Bureau) ratings (mostly D, E and F grades for many fake companies on this forum).

 

What is salary?

 

These salaries seem ridiculous to me, I'm based in London and our average salary is more than half of those seen on that PDF.

Also when they say on average; are they considering indie studios? or are these on average for AAA studios?

 

I think game developers, indies included, seem to do reasonably well compared to many other creative fields, like writing a novel for an example.

 

They should split it to pro indie devs and hobby indie developers... It currently means nothing.

 

It's over 9000!!!!

It's actually surprising that the indie community took such a deep dive. 10-20% is fine and something we can live with but 49% is just pure, utter insanity.

 

They don't draw a distinction, only between salaried and non-salaried. The average is of people who being paid full time to make games regardless of who they are working for. But it should be noted there are huge amount of studios in between. Indie and AAA represent the far ends of the spectrum.

 

They aren't including hobbyists. It's a survey of people who's primary source of income is making games for a living. And of those, only the ones who made more than 10k were counted.

 

Oh... yikes!

 

Mom's best advice? Don't quit your day-job.
Gigi

 

I don't think it's surprising at all. More people are making games and people are paying less for them. Unless you're an outstanding success that means that there's less money to be spread amongst more people, so the average has to go down.

 

Having europa as one category is nuts. There are countries where a McDonalds employee makes 40-60k and countries where he makes 10k or less.

 

Yeah that's why it's better to do it while your young on your parents dime, and or try to build up some income from the asset store over time. I think Sweden was going to give each adult 2800 a month, once that happens unity will be swimming in money.

Swiss to vote on $2,800 monthly income for all adults
http://news.msn.com/world/swiss-to-vote-on-dollar2800-monthly-income-for-all-adults

 

Yes, but much more people are playing. Some years before I think that only 1/3 of my friends play something (avarage up). Nowadays even the grandmothers are playing something. But almost only candy crush (avarage down)

 

Sweden != Switzerland
And this vote will have no chance. The Swiss just rejected 25$ minimum wage despite more than 90% of people making more than that. And this unconditional income thing is much more exotic than that.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...ighest-minimum-wage-srf-projection-shows.html

 

We just need to convince our governments that game developers should qualify for direct quantitative easing.

Or in the recognition that people need more fun we should lobby for a general arts based version of quantitative easing.

Quantitative Happiness anyone?

 

Exactly. More people are playing stuff, but less people are paying to do it and/or the number of people playing is growing far more quickly than the number of people paying.

 

Did you or anyone else here even read the study?

What you just said is not true in any way.

First off, the average salary ($11,812 for 2013) is not what you would make "if it takes off". Depending on what that term even means, "to take off", it is most likely NOT what you would make if your game "takes off". It is more likely if the games you release do NOT take off. IF "take off" insinuates any form of success at any level.

Second, the average is an average. It is not a single individual's salary. In fact, averages are more than likely no one's exact salary. So to say "that is what you would have earned in 2013 if your game took off" is wrong on so many levels.

Third, adding a member to your team does not instantly give you an average salary bonus of $40,000. That is just ludicrous logic. The possible reasoning behind the incredibly low salary for individual developers, as opposed to anyone else, is stated in the article for any who actually read it.

You also have to consider the fact that "solo game devs" probably make up a much larger number of people than indie teams or professional businesses. This alone will send the average down, plummetting far below what is true for people who make good games.


The survey mentions many times what the information within it means. It also mentions how the market is flooded with games. Since it is flooded, the majority probably don't see a lot of income, especially solo devs who push out total crap. You have to remember that the average includes all of the people who release **** games and flood the market with ****.


Otherwise, adding a single member to the team wouldn't instantly transform people from $11,812 to $50,833 over night. Yes, the addition of new team members means a possible increase in quality as you get people to do aspects of game dev with more experience (an artist instead of a programmer doing the art, for example) but it does not mean more people = more money.

This means that rationally, it would make significantly more sense for there to be other reasons why the average for solo devs to be so low.

Their advice on the page about the low indie salaries?

Sometimes I wonder if people read anything, or if they just skim it and then begin discussions and assumptions. My goodness.

 

LOL The statistics clearly show that members of indie teams on average outperform solo indie game developers financially.

It's common sense, a small talented group can do more work than an talented individual in the same time frame. The key thing here is time, as your salary is dependent upon income over time.

Also there is the low hanging fruit analogy, lots of developers are writing games e.g. flappy bird clones. The markets are becoming saturated, iOS and Android have a flood of new games every day. To stand out in the crowd you need to have a more outstanding product with a higher level of quality.

So if your income is dependent on the quality of your products and the time it takes to make your product (note that games do not have a hand crafted luxury market) then working in a 'good' small team could be beneficial.

I'm betting that the more successful solo indies outsource for sound effects or artwork. Either directly or indirectly via the asset store.

Or why do you think the asset store is such a hot property and Unity have been so slow to internalise features that are on the asset store (GUI, Shader Tools, Shaders ect).

 

Sure, but that's just re-stating what the numbers say. It's the conclusions you draw from it that matter and... well, I mostly agree with what Carter says in that regard.

The "if it takes off" thing is particularly noteworthy. As Carter says, the average will include both games that took off and games that didn't. Mostly ones that didn't. That means that the "average" most likely isn't indicative of anyone's actual income - most people would have got far less, and a few would have got far more.

If one person has 100 apples and 9 other people each have 1 apple, on average those people have ~11 apples each (10 people / 110 apples = 10.9 apples each). However, not a single one of those people actually has 11 apples. So if you concluded from those numbers that "if I were into apples last year, I'd probably have 11 apples"... well, that's actually way off base. You're looking at the average, where what you should actually be looking at is the median.

As for the teams thing, correlation is not causation. Yes, there's a correlation between working in teams and higher salaries. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that working in a team is the root cause of the increased salary. There are many possibilities as to what the cause could be. Here's another untested hypothesis: if a successful game developer wants to work in a team, they're more likely to team up with another already successful developer. Thus it could be that the increased average doesn't come from teams magically making better games but due to a selection bias towards people who already had a higher income. The numbers we have aren't enough for us to draw conclusions.

 

I totally agree with pretty much everything you and Carter pointed out. I do think the report/numbers are interesting to see, and give a nice broad overview of the mobile industry from the view of developers. But really the only valuable take away from the report is that it is tough industry.

With regards to your apple scenario/analogy... not only that the simple average doesn't provide a clear picture, it is also based on a subset. The results used to build this report were only those who make >$10k and <$200k. It is also said that 57% made <$500 (I would be curious what % was under 10k). Even a median number wouldn't give useful numbers. Were solos less successful, or were there just less of them? Or were solos so successful that many of them made more than 200k so not counted?

I also found it interesting that in a range of 10-200k, the average for solo was 11k and 50k for teams. Both of those numbers would suggest that most results were mostly on the bottom. For the average of solos to be 11k, that would mean that either no one was making 200k or the bottom end dramatically outnumbered the higher end.

 

40-60k? in rubles or pesos?... cause nearly all of those types of employees (in US) are part-time ~8$/hr (52 weeks a year, 30 hours a week = $12k/yr.)